Throwing things away is bad. Buying them in the first place was probably bad, too. But the act of disposing of them at the rubbish tip is a glorious moment of relief and release
A friend of mine surprised me with the vehemence of his love for something. He’s about my age, a highly successful maker of important television and avid consumer of Radio 4 and the Guardian. A keen thinker about things, he likes books and podcasts that are a little too advanced for me. All in all, he didn’t seem the type to say what he said, over a pint in our local. Furthermore, there was even a slightly glazed, far-off look in his eye when he announced, with such great feeling rising from deep in his soul: “I really love going to the dump.” It was only then that I realised I was free to admit to sharing this love. It was a moving, bonding moment between us. One love. For the dump.
My dump visits had hitherto been shrouded in a mist of shame. Throwing things away is bad, not least because buying them in the first place was bad, or at least not entirely necessary, which may amount to the same thing. Also, isn’t it all an exercise in shifting the responsibility for your junk on to someone – everyone? – else? This notion that it is magically being recycled, repurposed, reused is surely a fantasy, not much more than a veneer of righteousness to help those of us who feel guilty about it to feel less guilty about it.
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
07/24/2025 - 04:00
President’s opposition to offshore wind more than a decade ago now threatens a huge industry in the US and beyond
Donald Trump’s bitter dislike of renewable energy first erupted publicly 14 years ago in a seemingly trivial spat over wind turbines visible from his Scottish golf course. As Trump returns to Scotland this week, though, he is using the US presidency to squash clean power, with major ramifications for the climate crisis and America’s place in the world.
Trump will visit his Turnberry and Aberdeenshire golf courses during the Scottish trip, the latter venue being the stage of a lengthy battle by the president to halt 11 nearby offshore wind turbines. From 2011, Trump, then a reality TV star and property mogul, argued the “ugly” turbines visible from the Menie golf course were “monstrosities” that would help sink Scotland’s tourism industry.
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07/24/2025 - 04:00
As the Trump administration dismisses global heating, the coastal city is getting on with becoming one of the most climate resilient in the world. Here’s how
Patrick Devine, a captain for Boston Harbor City Cruises, shows me on his phone the scenes here in September 2024. The water was ankle-deep outside the door to his office on Long Wharf, one of the US city’s oldest piers, obscuring the pavements and walkways, surging into buildings and ruining vehicles in the car parks. “It just gets worse and worse each year,” says Devine, who has worked here, on and off, since 1995. “I’ve gotten used to it, so it’s just knowing your way around it.”
Much of Boston has got used to this. Devine has his own supply of sandbags now, for example. Next door to his office is the Chart House restaurant – when Long Wharf flooded last September, customers merrily sat at outside tables, holding their feet above the waterline, as servers with black bin bags for trousers waded over to bring them their lunches. The restaurant’s floor level is lower than that of the wharf, so the water came up to knee level in some areas. “It’s just part of business,” says one waiter, as he points out how the plug sockets are all at waist height. The place has flooded three times in the year he’s worked here. “We just clean it up, squeeze it out, open the doors, dry it out. It is what it is.”
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07/23/2025 - 18:02
Move expected to help negotiations with US for lower trade tariffs on exports, but Labor says decision was made after scientific assessment
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The Trump administration has claimed credit for Labor’s decision to lift restrictions on imports of US beef into Australia, saying non-scientific trade barriers had left American farmers “on the sidelines” for two decades.
The government confirmed on Thursday morning that the agriculture department would allow imports into Australia of meat processed in the US but grown in Mexico and Canada.
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07/22/2025 - 23:00
npj Ocean Sustainability, Published online: 23 July 2025; doi:10.1038/s44183-025-00143-4
Substantial gains and little downside from farming of Totoaba macdonaldi
07/18/2025 - 23:00
npj Ocean Sustainability, Published online: 19 July 2025; doi:10.1038/s44183-025-00148-z
Marine biodiversity change impacts relational values: expert survey shows policy mismatch
World Ocean Explorer Wins Gold Medal Serious Simulation Award from Serious Play Annual International Competition
10/26/2023 - 14:35
For Immediate Release October 19, 2023
Sedgwick, Maine USA World Ocean Explorer, a 3D virtual aquarium and educational simulation, was recently cited for excellence, winning a Gold Medal Award in the 2023 International Serious Play Awards Program.
World Ocean Explorer is an innovative 3D virtual aquarium designed for educational exploration of the world’s oceans. With interactive exhibits and a lobby space, visitors can immerse themselves in realistic marine environments, including a DEEP SEA exhibit funded by Schmidt Ocean Institute, showcasing unprecedented deep-sea discoveries off Australia. Targeted at 3rd graders and beyond, this immersive experience offers a range of perspectives on the ocean environment and can be explored through guided tours or user-controlled interfaces. Visit DEEP SEA at worldoceanexplorer.org/deep-sea-aquarium.html.
Serious Play Conference brings together professionals who are exploring the use of game-based learning, sharing their experience, and working together to shape the future of training and education. For more information on Serious Play Award Program visit seriousplayconf.com/international-serious-play-award-programs.
World Ocean Explorer is a transformative virtual aquarium designed to deepen understanding of the world ocean and amplify connection for young people worldwide. Organized around the principles of Ocean Literacy and the Next Gen Science Standards, World Ocean Explorer brings the wonder and knowledge of ocean species and systems to students in formal and informal classrooms, absolutely free to anyone with a good Internet connection. As an advocate for the ocean through communications, World Ocean Observatory believes there is no better investment in the future of the sustainable ocean than through a new approach to educational engagement that excites, informs, and motivates students to explore the wonders of our marine world and to understand the pervasive connection and implication for our future, inherent in the protection and conservation of all aspects of our ocean world.
World Ocean Explorer presents an astonishing 3-dimensional simulated aquarium visit, organized to reveal the wonders of undersea life, with layers of detailed data and information to augment the emotional connection made to the astonishing beauty and complexity of the dynamic ocean. Within each of the virtual exhibits, students visit exemplary theme-based sites with myriad opportunities to understand the larger perspectives of scientific knowledge as organized and visualized to dramatize the impact and change on ocean life as a result of natural and human-generated events. Through immersion among displays, mixed media and 3D models, the experience of an aquarium visit will be brought into classrooms or home school environments as a free, accessible, always available opportunity for teaching and learning. All of this will be available to a world audience without physical limitation or cost. World Ocean Explorer, a project of the World Ocean Observatory, receives support from the Seth Sprague Educational and Charitable Foundation, Visual Solutions Lab, the Climate Change Institute, the Khaled bin Sultan Living Oceans Foundation, and The Fram Museum Oslo. To learn more about the current and future exhibits of World Ocean Explorer, visit worldoceanexplorer.org.
media contact
Trisha Badger, Managing Director, World Ocean Observatory | [email protected] +12077011069
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